The arithmetic of happiness and the inevitability of shit

There's a lot of nasty headlines in the world 'o news these days, eh?

GazaukraineMH17PutinhondurassyriaISbringbackourmalialqedaimmigrationbordersbordersborders.

Frankly, I find you have to keep the headlines at arms length, otherwise this stuff is gonna take you over. It's a messed up world, to be sure, but is it really more messed up than in the past?

It seems so because it's what's on our screens now, right now, this instant, as we... well, we're not actually speaking, but you know what I mean.

So I try to stay above the fray as it were, although it is sometimes difficult to refrain from speaking out about one travesty or another, which I find myself doing more often than I wish.

But mostly I worry about more mundane things.

Like death.

Death in and of itself is not a particularly worrisome topic. Death is just that big camp counsellor in the sky turning the lights out for the last time.

It disturbs me no end to rummage through the obits and find way too many folks younger than me.

I AM A YOUNG MAN!

Well, in my head I am.

But I read those obits. There are basically two categories of deaths;

• The sudden death. This can happen with a car crash when you're seventeen or in your sleep at 97, although at 97 everybody figured you were a gonner anyway so even if your demise was sudden it was not a surprise
• The lingering death. This is where folks gradually, over many years, succumb to whatever, and their dying takes over not only their life, but the lives of their entire circle.

It's interesting that I never gave these things much thought at seventeen, but that was one thing I had in common with every seventeen-year-old; when you're 17 you know you're gonna live forever!

In fact, when you're 17 you pretty much know everything! I sure did!

I'm pretty much down to nothing now.